Shopping and consumerism, the culture of buying things – especially things we don’t strictly ‘need’ – may not be as popular a topic for poets as beautiful landscapes or falling in love, but especially in the last hundred years or so, many poets have explored the attraction of shopping and shops, and the lure of
Literature
TODAY: In 1941, John Edgar Wideman, the first person to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice, is born. Kari Nixon considers the xenophobic legacy of The Hot Zone, “one of the most dangerous books ever to become a bestseller.” | Lit Hub Politics Rivka Galchen recommends reading as a remedy for writer’s block, anxiety,
The snake, or serpent, is one of the most symbolically significant animals in literature, religion, and mythology. Although many people associate the snake with sinister and even downright evil connotations, in reality the symbolism of the serpent is far more ambiguous and wide-ranging than this. In the following post, we’re going to try to condense
June 11, 2021, 10:00am Pulitzer Prize-winning authors—they’re just like us! William Styron (Lie Down in Darkness; Sophie’s Choice; The Confessions of Nat Turner), who was born today in 1925 in Newport News, Virginia, wasn’t always a divisive yet critically acclaimed literary luminary. After graduating from Duke University in 1946, Styron enlisted in the Marines and
The raising of Lazarus is one of the miracles performed by Jesus. Like the miracle of turning the water into wine at the wedding at Cana, the raising of Lazarus is mentioned only in the Gospel of John. In the miracle, Jesus raises Lazarus of Bethany from the dead four days after Lazarus had been
June 11, 2021, 10:45am After over two years of bargaining with Condé Nast, and a march on Anna Wintour’s house, the New Yorker Union is preparing to strike, in service of fair pay; reasonable health care costs; the ability to freelance without oversight from The New Yorker; enhanced severance; and a notice period for layoffs.
‘MS. Found in a Bottle’ is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s sea stories, and one of his earliest works of fiction: it was published in 1833, when Poe was still in his early twenties. The story recounts an unnamed narrator’s experiences at sea, following a storm and shipwreck. One of the most intriguing aspects of
June 11, 2021, 11:56am Today at 1PM (EST) from Columbia University in New York City (or, you know, various people’s living rooms), the winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction will be announced. As well as a check for a cool $15,000 dollars, the victor (if there is to be one; see 2012) will
In his 1921 essay ‘The Metaphysical Poets’, T. S. Eliot made several of his most famous and important statements about poetry – including, by implication, his own poetry. It is in this essay that Eliot puts forward his well-known idea of the ‘dissociation of sensibility’, among other theories. But what did Eliot mean by ‘dissociation
TODAY: In 1929, Anne Frank is born, and in 1942, she’s gifted a diary for her birthday. The chunk of chilled rubber seen ’round the world: how legendary physicist Richard Feynman helped figure out the Challenger disaster. | Lit Hub History Put the spark back in your love life writing practice: what Ron Hogan’s learned from
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the surprising origins of that ‘a lie is halfway round the world …’ quotation ‘A lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’ The line well-known, and has itself made its way round probably more than half
June 11, 2021, 1:27pm The winners and nominated finalists of the 105th Pulitzer Prizes were announced today via remote video stream. The winners each take home $15,000 dollars and serious bragging rights, not to mention an instant ticket into a very illustrious club. Due to the unusual nature of the year, the Pulitzer committee expanded the
The Last Supper is the meal that Jesus shares with his disciples after his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. At the Last Supper, Jesus announces that one of his disciples will betray him. The meal is the subject of one of the greatest works of Renaissance art, a mural painted on the wall of a nun’s
Thunderously groove-laden in one track and carefully layered as to channel the heavy metal gods in another, it’s obvious when listening to the new album So Far So Good from Greye that the noted Daytona Beach rock outfit has a lot of energy they’re looking to burn off this summer. Comprised of hard-hitting songs like “Lucky,” “Come
TODAY: In 1900, Leopoldo Marchal, one of the most important Argentine writers of the 20th century, is born. Emma Goldberg on the young doctors who went from medical school into a pandemic, graduating early to enlist in “the COVID army.” | Lit Hub Health Thomas J. Lax on the work of Carrie Mae Weems, who
There are a number of prominent themes of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Each of the key themes we have identified in the following article, though, throws out some surprising details and interpretations, so it’s worth probing some of the play’s most important themes and subjects in more detail. Revenge. Revenge is obviously an important theme in
June 10, 2021, 1:34pm Today marks the 93rd birthday of Maurice Sendak, titan of children’s literature, whose kindness and empathy for children shone through in his immersive, vivid body of work as well as in life. In a 1986 Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross, later quoted in Applause, Sendak described his favorite compliment from
The Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) never won the Nobel Prize for Literature, nor did he write a novel. But he is widely regarded as one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century, was a considerable influence on magic realism, and penned some of the most original, clever, and thought-provoking short stories